


Kindness and Creed

by flightrules



Series: Transgression and Trust [2]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Developing Friendship, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 14:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30006588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightrules/pseuds/flightrules
Summary: Why did I never ask her name?But the answer is simple: Because she did not ask for his.After three days together on the Razor Crest and two nights wrapped in each other's arms, he just... let her go. Now, Din sets out to find her.A sequel toWhich Kind Do You Want to Be?
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Transgression and Trust [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2207283
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Kindness and Creed

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy. Here we go again. I had absolutely no intention of writing a sequel. But... how could we just _leave it like that._
> 
> This story's not fully formed yet, I'm letting the characters drive again and seeing where it leads. And I gotta say, Din's POV is a doozy to write.
> 
> But I thought I'd go ahead and post the first chapter and see if folks are interested in reading more. (If you are, I'd love if you would let me know!)

He doesn’t know her name. 

_Why did I never ask her name?_

But the answer is simple: Because she did not ask for his.

She didn’t ask for anything. 

She held the child on her lap and told the names of animals. Worried about the child’s safety. Let him win at games.

She listened to Din talk. Put up with his silence. Touched him with kindness. And also fucked him into the floor of the Razor Crest.

He figures he owes her. 

It’s not in him to admit that he misses her. He didn’t even know her for a tenday. Missing her wouldn’t make sense. 

He’d really like to talk to her again. 

Beyond the claristeel of the cockpit windows, space stretches away into blackness. The windows are flat, squared-off, utilitarian. He’s still getting used to the modern controls.

He wonders if she’s still carrying that rifle. If she’s settled down somewhere. Is she even still alive?

What he knows: She was gentle. What he knows: She was alone.

There are ways to find people. It’s what he does. 

It’s how he crossed paths with the child. It’s why he doesn’t have the child now. Not that he found the Jedi, exactly, but he was a big part of the finding. 

This would be easier with a tracking fob. 

He tells Karga: A village wiped out by the Empire. 

“Which one?” Karga asks.

“The people were kind,” Din says.

Karga is courteous enough not to laugh. 

He’s on the way to his next job, or the next one, or the next one. He leans forward, flips a switch on the nav system. Studies maps. 

Known space has borders. 

It may as well be endless.

Cara says, "What else do you know?” 

“Not much. There were no other survivors.”

Cara rubs her thumb across the marshal’s badge she wears. “No idea,” she says. “There were so many towns like that. We couldn’t think about the ones we couldn’t save.”

He’s found what’s left of his tribe. Not his, really, but the covert he threw his fate in with.The people who took him in, the last time he’d tired of running. 

The people who welcomed him back, now, even though his own actions were why they were so few.

He doesn’t spend much time there. He brings them credits, and he leaves, and he returns with more. And then he leaves again. 

When the Armorer asked him, he told her that his quest was done. She waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, she let him go.

Fett says, “There must be something.”

She said something about fields. About firebugs and twilight. Playing tag.

“Agriculture” Fett says. “Could mean the Lahara sector. Moff Motana was in charge there. She had a reputation for being ruthless. If you’re looking for places that aren’t there anymore.”

Agricultural settlements, small towns. The Lahara sector has two hundred and forty-five worlds. The maps show what’s there. But how to tell what’s gone?

Twin suns are mid-day high, and he’s glad for the adjustable shading in his visor. 

"Yeah," Peli says, one hand shielding her eyes from the brightness. "I might be able to locate an old nav system.” She shoos him into a patch of shade, where an awning juts out from a wall. “It's gonna cost you. Those things are antiques. Even if you could find one yourself? It'd probably be burnt out. Cracked through." 

She turns as if to head into her office, then stops. Din's new ship is parked in the landing bay. It's a single-pilot gunship, a recent-generation Incom, dangerous, practical, and ordinary. And built in the past few years.

"What do you want one for, anyway?"

"What's your price?" Din says.

"No," says Peli. "You're not getting off that easy."

"Fine," he says, and turns to go. Mos Eisley must have a junkyard. He should have started there instead.

She squints at him. "You're looking for something on a pre-Empire map."

“Yes.”

“Oh, now you’ve gotta tell me. Is it treasure?”

“No,” Din says. _Yes._

In the end, it turns out there’s an ancient nav computer right there among the circuits and parts that are piled at the back of Peli’s shop. The price she names is ridiculous. The bargain she offers is half off, in exchange for knowing why the hell he wants it.

 _Looking for someone_ leads to _Who?_ ends up with Peli demanding how he could possibly not have known her name. 

And _that_ ends with her charging him extra for stupidity, but then personally supervising the installation of the thing and making sure it works. They look together at twin holomaps. New and pre-Imperial landscapes turn slowly side by side. In some places, the patterns of towns and villages and landing fields match up. In others, gaps reveal what’s changed.

“Two hundred and forty-five worlds?”

“If it’s the right sector.”

“You’re crazy,” Peli says. “Does she know you’re crazy?”

“Probably,” Din says.

“Well. I hope you find her.”

There is always work. The New Republic is kinder in many ways, but there is still a prison system, and there is still such a thing as bail. And there are side jobs, too, outside of Guild rules, often bloodier but higher pay, as long as he keeps his mouth shut. 

He’s good at keeping his mouth shut. 

Most of his credits still go to the covert. To feed foundlings. Buy weapons. Buy time, until their strength is such that they can move freely in the world again. 

There is some shame in what he doesn’t bring them. In the credits he holds back for food and fuel and time of his own between jobs. But there is shame already, in what else he hasn’t told them. In three days on a lost ship with a woman who knows his face. Knows his secrets. 

Isn’t even family. 

He marks the maps with each visit to places-that-were. Walks among shards that used to be people’s homes. There is ash on his boots. In the silent fields, green is just starting to poke up through charred ground. 

He asks at the places that still are. 

It’s not that he thinks she’ll be there. He just hopes they’ll know her name.

Word gets around: A Mandalorian on the hunt. Some people close their doors. Others trade information for money. 

No one recalls a village with one sole survivor. 

Sometimes, though, they’ll send for someone who might. 

There’s a year’s more grey in his hair, a year more of the Armorer’s silence while he tithes his credits and waits to be dismissed.

He’s in a place where it’s early summer. Firebugs glimmer in twilight, a year’s more green has crept back into those charred fields, and she shows up at the farmhouse where he’s stopped to ask the way. 

The rifle is gone, but there’s a blaster in her hand.

“Who are you looking for?”

He has been wanting, all this time, to talk to her again. 

And now, suddenly, he remembers: _No promises._ She asked if they could trust each other, and she put a condition on it. _Trust_ ended when the Crest’s landing gear settled onto the ground of Pavotha. Or at least, when she stepped off onto cracked duracrete, and he just-- let her go. 

“I’m not here on business,” he says. He wonders if she can hear that his voice is shaking.

The blaster lowers, slowly, and slides into a holster at her hip. 

“It’s all right,” she says to the woman who summoned her. “It’s all right. I know him.”

She moves as though she belongs here, reassuring the older woman, walking her to a doorway, ushering her into another room. She comes back and faces him, a careful meter or two away. 

He should say something to her. 

He hasn’t thought that far. 

“What do you want?” she says.


End file.
